[size=15pt]‘Muslim North’ and ‘Christian South’[/size]SIMON KOLAWOLE Live!, Email: simonkolawole@thisdayonline.com, 03.21.2010

Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Ghaddafi, has an interesting antidote to the frequent religious riots in Nigeria: break the country into two – something like the Islamic Republic of Northern Nigeria and Christian Republic of Southern Nigeria. In his own calculations, this is the ultimate recipe for peace and stability. There would be no more religious riots and burning of places of worship. We would live apart happily ever after. Hindus and Muslims used to have a similar problem in India, Ghaddafi reminded us, until it was split in two with the creation of Pakistan for Muslims in 1947. Many Nigerians have reacted angrily to his suggestion. [b]Senate President David Mark, a Northern Christian, described Ghaddafi as “a mad man”. [/b] The House of

Representatives wants Nigeria to sever diplomatic ties with Libya in protest. The Federal Government has recalled the Nigerian ambassador to Libya “for consultations” – obviously over Ghaddafi’s pronouncement.
On the other hand, not everyone is disgusted. Many Nigerians, especially Southerners, are backing the proposal. The "Hausa people" are the problem of Nigeria, they argue, and Nigeria would be better off without them. Their argument goes thus: until the country is divided into North and South, Nigeria will never make progress. It is the North that is “dragging us back”. After all, it is the South that is sustaining the North through oil. The argument goes on and on and on and on.


The responses to Ghaddafi’s proposal have been largely off the point. What is the issue? The Libyan leader said Nigeria should be divided into Muslim and Christian units. He didn’t say it should be divided into North and South or Hausa and “others”. But read and listen to the responses and you start hearing things about “Hausa”, “Yoruba”, “Igbo”, “Niger Delta”, “oil”, etc etc. We are involved in what students of logic call “mistaken argument”. One thing you will easily notice about public debate in Nigeria is the way issues are jumbled up. This usually derives from a combination of intolerance, ignorance, primordial sentiments and mischief, interjected with foul language, eventually producing no reasonable discourse and no reasonable outcome. We end up confusing issues, unable to make head or tail of debates. You just have to worry about the quality of public debate in Nigeria.


Now, is it practically possible to divide Nigeria into Muslim and Christian units? I would rather examine that than choose to be overwhelmed with hysteria. Ghaddafi’s suggestion is obviously a product of widespread ignorance – the ignorance and the myth about “Muslim North” and “Christian South”. I, therefore, do not blame him. Really, there is a global misconception about the very complex ethno-religious structure of Nigeria. When the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said recently that power would remain in the North, the foreign press reported that the party said the next President must be a Muslim! The BBC said power is rotated between Muslims and Christian in Nigeria. Such ignorance was exposed by a Southern Muslim's victory in the 1993 presidential election (MKO Abiola). Yakubu Gowon, a Northern Christian, was military head of state for nine years! So much for "Muslim North" and "Christian South".


At a private dinner with an Asian ambassador recently, THISDAY executives took turns to introduce themselves. "I'm Yusuph Olaniyonu," the Sunday Editor said. "You're Muslim. So you're from the North?" the ambassador asked. The MD of Leaders & Co introduced himself: "I'm Deji Mustapha." The ambassador said the same thing. On both counts, the ambassador applied the misconceived template for Nigeria. On both counts, he was wrong.


Many outsiders think it is as simple as classifying one part of the country Muslim and the other part Christian. How would Ghaddafi’s proposal resolve the Jos crisis, for instance? Jos is indeed a test case for the advocates of balkanisation of Nigeria. The massacres are not about North and South. How many Igbos and Yorubas were killed in the latest mayhem in Dogo Nahawa and other villages? It was strictly between Fulanis and Beroms – two Northern ethnic groups. So how would Ghaddafi’s proposal handle that?


Some of these funny proposals are based on a lack of appreciation of the complex nature of the country. It is not just outsiders who make the mistake – Nigerians do so all the time. To the unenlightened Southerner, the North is another word for “Muslim” and “Hausa”. To be a Northerner is to be a Hausa Muslim. To the Southerner, Hausa is Fulani and Fulani is Hausa. Kanuri is Hausa. Bachama is Hausa. If you tell a typical Southerner you are from Kwara or Adamawa or Kaduna, automatically you are classified as “Hausa”. I once overheard a Kanuri politician protest vehemently when my journalist colleagues called him Hausa. If a journalist does not know the difference between Kanuri and Hausa – and we are supposed to be active participants in public debate – then we are in real trouble intellectually.


At least 12 of the 19 Northern states have significant “indigenous” Christian population: Adamawa, Benue, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau and Taraba. And at least five of these states are predominantly Christian. You have Christians scattered all over the North. How do you gather them together to form a country? Are you going to create new communities, build new houses and provide new ancestral environments for them in the South? On the other hand, you have the South-west equally spilt between Muslims and Christians. The Yoruba ethnic nationality is a case study on its own. In the same family, you can have Muslims and Christians. It is not uncommon for the husband, a Muslim, to drive his wife to the church on Sunday, drop her off and come back to pick her after service. In the same home, you will find children of the same parents practising different faiths.

How does Ghaddafi want to explain that?
Ghaddafi’s proposal is flawed, need I say? It is going to be geographically and socio-politically cumbersome to break Nigeria into Muslim and Christian. Ghaddafi forgot to add that in India, Muslims and Hindus are still fighting long after Pakistan was excised. He also forgot to add that Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan in 1971, despite Islam binding them together. The Nigerian supporters of Ghaddafi have also not explained to us how the two-state proposal will resolve the recent communal killings in Benue and Ebonyi. Or how it would have prevented Ife/Modakeke, Ogbe-Ijoh and Tiv/Junkun wars. Or the Umuleri/Aguleri carnage. Meanwhile, how do you separate Yoruba along religious lines? Are you going to move the Yoruba Muslims to the North? What happens to Auchi Muslims? Will they relocate to Kano or Jigawa?


Obviously, I strongly believe Nigerians can live together in “peace and unity” based on my observations and concrete evidence gathered over the years. I believe the things that bind us together are more than the things that separate us. I believe that accommodation and tolerance will help reduce our conflicts. I believe that justice and fair play will make us stronger. But if Nigerians decide to go their separate ways, how is that my problem? If breaking up will stop treasury looting, if breaking up will make governors and council chairmen build more roads and hospitals, if breaking up will allow free and fair elections at all levels, if breaking up will provide 24-hour electricity, who am I to suggest otherwise?


It's always amazing how we try to reduce our problems to a matter of religion and ethnicity. Agreed, these are real problems. There is too much ethno-religious cleaving and less emphasis on integration. These are real, real problems. But I am more bothered about the things that magnify our differences: politicking, ignorance and intolerance – which are ever so often fed by economic tensions and the buccaneering, manipulative elite from all ethnic groups without exception. The intelligentsia is, unfortunately, complicit. The ordinary people are the victims. They are hungry and exploited. The politicians will rather give them cutlasses than cutlery. When somebody is hungry and desperate, it is all too easy to whip up sectional sentiments in him or her.
Clearly, Ghaddafi is ignorant about the nature of Nigeria. Things are more complicated than they appear.